Electronics

Lithium-ion batteries degrade over time, but there are ways you can make them last longer. A team at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, has put together a list of best practices to preserve the life of lithium-ion batteries as long as possible.

In a perfect world, the only objects that anyone would ever wish to print on would be sheets of paper. Given that this isn't a perfect world, though, The God Things has created what it claims is the smallest-ever mobile color printer – the PrinCube.

An innovative new battery design makes use of an element we’re producing too much of in carbon dioxide, and boasts an unprecedented ability to recharge 500 times.

Scientists at Purdue University have come up with a new and improved battery design by first fashioning a key material into a net-like structure called a nanochain.

Engineers have recently focused on trying to emulate the structure of the brain with artificial synapses. Now, a team of researchers have made a new artificial synapse design that works using a light-based biotechnology technique called optogenetics.

The Langogo Genesis is a hand-held pocket translator, smaller than a smartphone, that uses noise-cancelling microphones to translate between more than 100 languages, while offering you a 4G WiFi hotspot while you're travelling. We've been using one for the last few weeks.

Heat loss is wasted energy. If we're to successfully create smaller, more efficient technology, then the thermal energy that our gadgets waste needs to be put to better use. This new device, which works at the nanoscale where the theoretical "blackbody limit" falls apart, could be the answer.

Electronic devices are made possible thanks to rare-Earth metals, but these are rare and relatively expensive. Now, scientists have found a way to combine common elements into electronically-useful compounds, which could find their way into tunable lighting and solar panels.

Researchers at Cambridge University have managed to create the smallest pixels in the world, about a million times tinier than those in a phone. These new pixels could be used in huge, flexible displays that are relatively easy to manufacture and cheaper to run.

The smaller and lighter electronics get, the more ways they can be used. A team of researchers has come up with a compact radar system the size of a matchbox that could be deployed in drones and other gadgets where portability and low cost are important.

Although smartphones perform many tasks on their own, they're also able to make devices such as drones, robots and cameras cheaper and/or more capable by acting as their "brains." One of the latest gadgets to receive such a treatment is the humble – and potentially treasure-finding – metal detector.

​It can be challenging, keeping track of multiple electrical devices to see which ones are currently running, and which may be about to fail. MIT's NILM (non-intrusive load monitoring) system is designed to help, tracking the status of devices in settings such as factories, high-rises or even ships.